District Officials Promote Healing, Prevention Following Thomas Jefferson HS Shooting

A suspect accused of the shooting in the Thomas Jefferson High School parking lot after school March 21 has been arrested, Dallas ISD’s media relations team confirmed.

Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde and Thomas Jefferson High School Principal Benjamin Jones addressed the media at a press conference March 22, emphasizing the district’s steps to help the community heal from the incident and prevent future ones. As of the press conference, the suspect had been identified but not yet arrested.

“When the unimaginable happens, even though we train and we prepare, it doesn’t erase the huge amount of emotion that comes with the responsibility of serving in public schools,” Elizalde said.

(READ: Student Shot Outside Thomas Jefferson High School)

The investigation remains ongoing and the district’s police department, which has its own detectives, will be taking the lead. Elizalde said that although she has some more detailed information, she will not be sharing it to ensure the investigation can be completed thoroughly.

The district has enough information to believe that at least two of the three students involved are enrolled at the high school, Elizalde said. She also said two of the involved people were in a vehicle, drove up, shot the third person (a male Thomas Jefferson High School student) in the arm, and then drove away. The student’s injuries were not fatal, but Jones declined to provide more details about his condition to protect the family’s confidentiality.

Elizalde also said that the shooting was an isolated incident, but she will be getting team members together to determine how to better secure the parking lots. Some ideas have included relocating student lots or putting up gates, but discussion and brainstorming will continue as they determine a solution.

“We do feel confident that there’s going to be a resolution,” Elizalde said. “… I also know I still have to bring a degree of more safety and security to our families even though I know and can say it was an isolated situation. I still know what that feels like as a mom.”

Jones said three staff members rushed to the scene of the incident to support students — the athletic trainer performed first aid, the band director called 911 within 30 seconds, and the assistant athletic coordinator called Jones, who then notified district leadership. They showed up within 10 minutes.

“After the horrific incident with the TJ student, I want to tell you that as hard as it is to use this next word, I’m going to use it, how proud I am to serve alongside individuals like we have here at Thomas Jefferson,” Elizalde said.

About 300 students were still on campus at the time of the shooting and immediately listened to the adults calling them back into the building to go into lockdown, Jones said: “I want to thank our students; our students could have contributed to making the situation worse. That is not the TJ way. … We want TJ to return to the safe haven that it always has been for them.”

In August, Elizalde addressed the media about her school safety plan, which included investments in school safety measures and professional development.

(READ: School Safety Stays Top of Mind)

“I do need you to understand that that plan worked, and that’s why that weapon was not in our school building,” Elizalde said. “Those systems do work. Now it also allows us to recognize we still have other vulnerabilities and I would be remiss if I didn’t say clearly we’re going to have to now look into how we become even more secure with our parking facilities.”

Thomas Jefferson and neighboring campus Walnut Hill International Leadership Academy were closed the day following the incident, but Thomas Jefferson staff members (all but five who were previously approved time off for other commitments) gathered to connect and begin the healing process alongside district officials.

The school also offered on-campus counseling and lunch pickup for students in need of either resource.

“If we held school today as usual, I feel that we would be contributing to that normalization,” Elizalde said. “We all have to come together to recognize that these events manifest themselves in many of our community locations of gathering.”

The incident landed the day after a fatal shooting at Lamar High School in Arlington.

“It pains me to know that our community fell victim to this unimaginable incident,” Jones said. “Obviously, earlier this week, I sat back with my own family and reflected on a news story and said, ‘I can’t imagine that happening.’ And it did. This is our worst nightmare.”

Jones used the word “resilient” to describe the Thomas Jefferson community. The school was destroyed in the October 2019 tornado and the newly rebuilt campus opened for students in January of this year. Campus leaders will continue to reflect and learn to pursue a safer community, he said.

“We prepare for situations like this, and yesterday we saw that preparation in practice, and our procedures and our protocol in response to the situation worked,” Jones said. “Students were kept safe in the aftermath of the incident.”

Superintendents across Texas have also recently joined forces to ask the legislature for a minimum of $200 per student to put toward student safety in schools, as opposed to the approximate $10 they get now.

“We will continue to look for ways to improve to continue building a safer community both on campus and off campus, to partner with our families and our community organizations, to empower our families so that students feel hope [and] that families feel connected to the choices that lead students here,” Jones said.

The two campuses will reopen March 23 with an increased visible police presence through at least the end of the week. Elizalde has also committed to assigning a police officer to the Walnut Hill campus through at least the end of the academic year.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 9:16 p.m. to reflect that the suspect responsible for the shooting has been arrested.